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Multiple-Meaning Words

A multiple-meaning word is spelled and said the same way but means different things: a bat flies at night, and you hit a ball with a bat. Context is the only clue, which is why these words are such good reading practice.

Here are 124 multiple-meaning words from past ClueBy puzzles, each with a real example sentence for every meaning. Use them as a reference, or make a printable worksheet below.

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Students read each sentence and write the missing word. Every word appears in several sentences, each time with a different meaning.

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Multiple-Meaning Words

Name: ____________________Date: __________

Write the missing word in each sentence. Each word is used more than once, with a different meaning each time.

  1. Friends gathered at the ________________ to remember him.
  2. Michael Jackson and Prince changed the history of ________________ music.
  3. It seems a cruel thing to ________________ a bird's wings.
  4. Vegetables are growing on this ________________.
  5. Hold the papers together with a ________________.
  6. The polar ice ________________ is melting.
  7. The speedboat left a long ________________ behind it.
  8. Can you put the ________________ back on the pen?
  9. I cannot ________________ this tree. It's too high.
  10. How can I extract the audio from a video ________________?
  11. We're almost out of ________________.
  12. You don't need to ________________ round.
  13. The stadium has a track around the football ________________.
  14. The ________________ hangs upside down in the cave.
  15. Do not ________________ roses in the fall.
  16. Tom didn't even ________________ an eye.
  17. I got dealt a bad ________________.
  18. Do you need a ________________ with that?
  19. A ________________ is just a dried plum.
  20. I didn't ________________ up well this morning.
  21. She's an expert in the ________________ of medicine.
  22. It's best to wear a ________________ on your head during the cold Moscow winters.
  23. He hasn't even shaken my ________________.
  24. The ________________ was stolen yesterday, along with the balls.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com

Answer key

  1. wake — before a funeral
  2. pop — music
  3. clip — to cut
  4. field — farmland
  5. clip — for paper
  6. cap — of ice
  7. wake — a trail
  8. cap — a lid
  9. prune — to trim
  10. clip — a video
  11. pop — soda
  12. pop — to visit
  13. field — for sport
  14. bat — the animal
  15. prune — to trim
  16. bat — in an idiom
  17. hand — in cards
  18. hand — help
  19. prune — the fruit
  20. wake — to stop sleeping
  21. field — a subject
  22. cap — a hat
  23. hand — part of the body
  24. bat — for baseball

Multiple-meaning words list

Tick up to 10 words to build a worksheet with just those words.

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Frequently asked questions

What are multiple-meaning words?

Words with the same spelling and pronunciation but more than one meaning, like bark (of a dog or of a tree) or bank (for money or of a river). You can only tell which meaning is meant from the rest of the sentence.

Are multiple-meaning words the same as homonyms?

Mostly, yes. Teachers often use "multiple-meaning words" and "homonyms" for the same idea. Homophones are different: they sound alike but are spelled differently, like flour and flower.

Are the worksheets free?

Yes. Make and print as many as you like for home or classroom use. Each sheet has its own link, so you can print the same one again.

Where do the words come from?

From past ClueBy puzzles, a daily game where you sort twelve sentences by their missing word. A new puzzle every day adds four more words to this list.

Sentences from ClueBy, Tatoeba (CC BY 2.0 FR) and Common Voice (CC0). clueby.com